Georgia

The authorities in the Caucasian country of Georgia has caused controversy among Georgian Muslims by appointing two muftis, thus dividing the Muslim minority in the country to eastern and western religious authorities.

Until recently, Jamal Paksadze was the mufti of all the Muslims in Georgia, after being elected in an open ballot. However, on January 9, Lasin Aliev was appointed as the mufti of the Muslims in eastern Georgia, limiting Paksadze’s authority to the Muslims in the west of the country.

Georgia will seek close cooperation with both Russia and Western powers, billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili said on Tuesday, as his opposition coalition headed for election victory.

“It is very difficult to have many strategic partners, but we have to try and do this,” Ivanishvili told journalists. “If we can build a democratic state, I believe we will have a genuine opportunity to forge good relations with NATO and Russia.”

Citizens of neighboring Georgia and Turkey will be able to travel to each other's country with only their state identity cards, beginning on May 31.

A ceremony will be held at the Sarp land border gate on the very same day with the participation of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili and Georgian Prime Minister Nika Gilauri.

Georgia's parliament has branded the 19th-century killings of the Muslim Circassian minority by Russia's tsarist forces as genocide in a resolution likely to further strain Tbilisi's ties with Moscow.

Originally from the northwest Caucasus, Circassians say 1.5 million of their ancestors were systematically killed in a 1860-64 military campaign to conquer the Caucasus Mountain area on the southern border of today's Russia.

The deaths were recorded by Russian imperial historians in 1864. No nation has recognized them as genocide.

The UN’s highest court ruled on Friday it had no jurisdiction to hear Georgia’s complaints of alleged human rights abuses by Russia on Georgian territory because the two sides had not held negotiations.

Georgia accused Russia of “serious violations” of a 1965 anti-discrimination treaty during three interventions in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from 1990 to August 2008, and a “systematic policy” of ethnic discrimination.

Turkish State Minister Hayati Yazici and Georgian Finance Minister Kakha Baindurashvili signed a protocol on joint use of customs gates Sarp, Cildir/Aktas and Posof/Turkgozu at a ceremony in Istanbul on Friday.

Delivering a speech in the ceremony, Yazici said that there would be a 40 percent decrease in procedures in customs gates thanks to the protocol.

Yazici said that they opened a new page between Turkey and Georgia with this protocol.

Joint use of customs gates would be first for Turkey and Georgia, he said.